To address an imminent funding shortfall, the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine is considering setting aside seats for international students and Western Canadian students willing to pay higher international-student fees.

The college has also requested federal funding so it can reserve up to 10 seats for Indigenous Canadian students.

The WCVM is jointly funded by the Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba governments, with each province giving money proportional to the number of seats allocated for its students.

No other province has expressed interest in increasing its funding contributions to make up for the shortfall, so leaders at the WCVM are thinking about how the college — which has racked up deficit budgets for the last six years — will survive when it loses what amounts to roughly one-quarter of its operating budget.

Students Alyssa Froese, left, and Abby Haney practise suturing at the simulation lab at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine.Liam Richards /
Saskatoon StarPhoenix

“It’s a huge challenge,” said Dean Dr. Doug Freeman.

“We’ve cut some positions early on that were open. We’ve found efficiencies and trimmed expenses. We’ve reallocated resources to areas where we needed them. And so then we get this and there’s very few kinds of minor adjustments left to make.”

The college admits about 80 new students to its doctor of veterinary medicine program each year. Freeman said it could expand to accommodate 90 students without huge investments in staff or infrastructure.

To date, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Alberta have paid roughly $8 million toward WCVM’s operating costs annually and 20 seats are set aside for students from each of those provinces. The Manitoba government contributes about $6 million and there are 15 seats for Manitoba students.

The college has loose agreements with territorial governments and accepts one or two northern students each year, with the territories providing some funding. WCVM also funds two seats for Indigenous students.

With Alberta leaving the interprovincial agreement — and giving up its 20 seats — after the 2019-2020 academic year, the WCVM is exploring different models for how to fund those seats.

“Part of our modelling has looked at some significant jumps in student tuition, but we really do not want to go there,” Freeman said.

Students entering the WCVM’s four-year doctor of veterinary medicine program next year will pay an annual tuition of about $9,800, which Freeman notes is one of the lowest tuition rates of the country’s four English-language veterinary schools.

“There’s some room to wiggle, but we don’t want to solve one problem by creating another,” he said.

Freeman has put together a draft funding plan that involves setting aside seats for up to 15 international students. While he doesn’t yet know what tuition for those students would be, it’s not uncommon for international students to pay more than five times what domestic students pay.

Dr. Kira Penney rewards her dog Fin with treats during a physiotherapy demonstration in the rehab centre at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine.Liam Richards /
Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Both the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island and the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph accept international students. Canadian students at AVC pay $13,000 a year in tuition while their international counterparts pay $66,500 annually. At OVC, Canadian students pay $5,700 a year and international students pay $33,600.

Freeman said one concern he has with accepting international students is that international graduates are unlikely to stay in Western Canada, where there is a “screaming” need for them.

The Alberta Veterinary Medical Association, while it has applauded the Alberta government’s decision to invest in more seats at the University of Calgary’s veterinary program, has asked the government to continue its investment in the WCVM because the veterinarian shortage in Alberta is so severe.

The WCVM hosted a job fair last week attended by 45 veterinary practices from the western provinces hoping to woo soon-to-be graduates. One student left the fair with six job offers.

“(Reserving international seats) is strictly generating revenue and so it isn’t really serving Western Canada other than keeping the college going,” Freeman said.

The optics also look bad; Freeman said about 460 Western Canadian students apply for the WCVM’s 80 seats each year, and many unsuccessful applicants end up paying international fees and going abroad to get their doctor of veterinary medicine degrees.

“We’re all sending Western Canadians to the Caribbean or overseas to study and then we’re opening up seats and bringing international students in to fill those seats, and it just didn’t seem like the big picture was serving the region,” Freeman said.

Freeman has proposed the college offer five “open seats” for qualified Western Canadian students who aren’t accepted into the 55 seats reserved for Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Manitoba residents. Those students would pay the same tuition as international students.

“If those students can pay the same amount they’d be paying to go overseas, but can do it here, there’s a lot of students that would prefer to do that,” he said.

Freeman said he hopes the move is not a barrier to lower-income applicants — after all, nearly all students in the doctor of veterinary medicine program need to borrow money; the open-seat students will simply need to borrow more.

“Our students, many of them come from rural backgrounds, they go back into rural mixed animal practice, that’s where the needs are, so we would really hate to do anything that would make it harder for us to meet our needs,” he said.

A final piece of a new college funding model could involve federal funding for Indigenous seats. Freeman said he recently travelled to Ottawa and met with staff from the Ministry of Indigenous Services to request funding for up to 10 educational equity seats for Indigenous Canadian students. If the proposal is successful, it would relieve the pressure of the college having to fund two seats for Indigenous students itself, Freeman said.

“This is a huge challenge we’re facing … but there’s opportunities in those challenges too to do some things differently.”

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